


The Lost Prince of Atlantis

by kisahawklin



Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, The Losers, The Losers (2010)
Genre: Being Lost, Crossover, Families of Choice, Gen, Search and Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-16
Updated: 2011-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A game of Hide and Seek goes wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lost Prince of Atlantis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dedougal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedougal/gifts).



> You asked for a Stargate crossover, and this is the cracktastic idea that came to mind. I hope you enjoy!

Once upon a time there was a very special boy named Casper Carlisle Porteous. He wasn't called that, of course, except when his mother was really angry with him. His parents called him CC, the rest of the Losers called him Ghost, and that's the name stuck when he got to Atlantis.

He was special because his parents were both special, and in a world where the SGC had their hands in everybody's medical records, it didn't take long for them to track him down, along with his mom and dad and everyone else they ever knew.

His inoculation record was what tipped off the SGC, sent alarm bells ringing in three different offices around the globe. It took a little while for the SGC to track down Jolene Porteous, and it took them even longer to convince her they weren't after her husband – at least not in a bad way – but when they did, they tracked down Pooch too, and the rest of the Losers just ended up coming along for the ride.

Pooch and Aisha both had the gene, Pooch with the strongest expression. Jensen lit up like a Christmas tree when they gave him the gene therapy. It didn't work on Clay, which he was secretly thrilled about, and Cougar flat-out refused it. No amount of explaining or cajoling or downright bribing would get him to take the therapy.

Pooch refused to join the SGC without his family and his team (who were also family, though he didn't have to say that to the men and women around the table when they offered him the job – they all knew it well enough already). Jolene and the Losers were given concessions too – Jolene was given a job in the infirmary, her nursing skills barely rusty from the three months since she stopped working to have Ghost, but still put to the test nearly every day. Clay asked for his rank back, which made him the only Army personnel on the entire base. Everyone else was happy with civilian contractor status. Jensen got access to some of the craziest shit he'd ever seen, and helped Bill Lee rewrite security protocols that weren't just advanced math in disguise. Aisha wanted Max's head on a plate, and asked for it, but had to be satisfied with footage of his trial and sentencing. This made Clay a little uncomfortable; it was way too easy to just string Max up like that. Would they be working for big brother's nasty older sister? But Aisha didn't kill him, so he chalked it up as a win. Besides, once he started going to other planets, all the international conflict seemed a little less interesting.

The Losers became SG-27, and after a remarkable propensity for getting out of sticky situations on their own, started to become the go-to team for extraction. Not for anything diplomatic, of course, that was still handled by Daniel Jackson and SG-1, but when SG-1 got into trouble, the Losers were always there.

The first time the team went to Atlantis, it was a regular extraction mission, one that probably would have been handled by Team Sheppard, if they hadn't been the ones needing extraction. Major Lorne called in the Losers as a tactical advantage (snipers still weren't first on the list of personnel to be transferred to the Pegasus galaxy), and Cougar's well-placed bullet kicked off the cleanest non-diplomatic rescue mission Atlantis had on its books to date.

The Losers and Team Sheppard hit it off immediately, with the exception of Jensen and McKay. Aisha and Ronon spent hours sparring in the gym; Clay and Teyla debated the merits of diplomacy over a long lunch; Jensen looked over McKay's shoulder constantly in the lab, both of them snarking and babbling, while Cougar sat in the corner, feigning sleep with his hat over his face. Sheppard, well, Sheppard let Pooch fly a puddlejumper, and that started the inevitable slide of the Losers into the Pegasus galaxy.

Two years after that fateful jumper ride, the Losers were officially stationed in Atlantis. Jolene was transferred to the Atlantis infirmary with glowing praise from Dr. Lam, but Jensen was back to following his niece's budding soccer stardom from the team's homepage and snippets of local newspaper, sent with care packages from his sister like clockwork every two months.

They became SGA-11, which they liked better than their SG-27 number, though everyone just called them the Losers. It took Mr. Woolsey some time to warm up to the name, but for everyone else it stuck from the beginning, just like Ghost's nickname and the one he gave Torren – Wheels. They were together almost constantly from the time Ghost was old enough to walk, and even though they weren't supposed to play outside their designated safe zones, Ghost got Atlantis to let them go wherever they wanted. They were nicknamed the Princes of Atlantis after Ghost found another chair room, and they pretended it was a throne.

This is the story of how one of those Princes of Atlantis got lost one day, seven years after the Losers had come to Atlantis, four years after they'd decimated the Wraith, and two months before Ghost's eighth birthday.

* * *

"One, two, three…" Ghost's voice trailed off as Wheels took off down the corridor. He got in the first transporter he came to and pushed the button for the science area – he knew there were a lot of big boxes and crates in there, and he was thinking of taking a nap while Ghost tried to find him. He settled into a crate packed with peanuts and a single bit of machinery he snuggled up against, and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

"Ghost," Pooch called over the radio. He'd given up on CC after moving to Atlantis. He'd gotten his own nickname when he was seven, so he wasn't too concerned that Ghost seemed to have stuck – besides it was half his fault for naming the kid Casper. If it lasted to adulthood, it'd either be creepy or useful, so all in all, Pooch didn't mind. "Time for dinner, so get on home."

Pooch took a moment to be thankful he'd found the one place in the universe he felt safe letting his kid run the streets with other kids until dinner time.

Ghost didn't answer right away, so Pooch called him again. "Ghost, I'm not fooling around here."

_"Okay, dad, jeez. I was playing hide and seek with Wheels."_

"Well, tell Wheels to get home too. I saw Teyla looking for him earlier."

_"I can't find him."_

Pooch laughed. "He must be a pretty good hider, then. All right, I'll tell Teyla to radio him. Get your butt back here, little man."

Pooch left Jolene cooking something with the crazy hot peppers from Juliin and headed across the hall to Teyla and Kanaan's apartment.

"Pooch," Teyla said, smiling. "Come in."

"Oh, thanks, but I don't have time – I just wanted to tell you that Wheels was playing hide and seek, so you better try his radio if you haven't seen him."

"Thank you," Teyla said, reaching for her radio. Pooch still wasn't used to wearing over the ear comms yet, but no amount of bitching by the Losers would get Atlantis staff to switch to throat comms. He knew Jensen'd bent McKay's ear about it a few times, but considering their rocky relationship, Pooch wasn't hoping for much.

"You're welcome. Hey, we should send the kids to Athos one of these days, take a vacation or something."

Teyla smiled at him and nodded, already turning to talk into her microphone. He waved and nearly ran into Ghost when he turned around. "Hey there, little man," Pooch said, picking him up and throwing him over his shoulder. He was getting heavy, and Pooch didn't look forward to the age where throwing him over his shoulder wouldn't be possible anymore.

"No luck finding Wheels, huh?" Pooch said, turning to look at Cougar and Jensen coming down the corridor.

"Nope," Ghost said, sounding forlorn.

"Maybe he took some lessons from Cougar," Pooch said, and Cougar just tipped his hat as he preceded Pooch into his apartment.

"What's for dinner?" Jensen asked, clapping his hands together. "Smells delicious."

Jolene harrumphed loudly and slapped Jensen's hand away from the diced tomatoes. "Tacos, and don't touch anything until you've washed your hands."

+++++

Halfway through dinner, their comms went off. Only Cougar was wearing his, so he nodded and said, "Understood," pushing back from the table.

"Wheels is missing," he said, and just like that, they were all scrambling for their discarded bits of uniforms, comms, and equipment. Jensen had a pair of laptops, the tablet variety that the Atlantis personnel seemed to favor.

"You okay, mama?" Pooch asked, glancing at Jolene as he wriggled into his tac vest. She looked startled, but in control, and Ghost looked like he might cry.

"I've got this," she said. "Just find that little boy and bring him home."

Pooch nodded, kissed Ghost and Jolene, and they were gone.

+++++

As soon as they started for the gateroom, Woolsey's voice boomed out from the overhead speakers.

"Good evening. We are running a routine personnel check. Lockdown will commence in five minutes. We prefer that you be in your quarters, or if you are on duty, in your assigned lab or guard station. If you are on patrol, please report to the gateroom. Once we have confirmed all personnel, lockdown will be over. Please stay off your radios unless absolutely necessary. Thank you."

The three of them picked up the pace, meeting up with Clay, Aisha, and Sheppard just outside the gateroom.

"Okay," McKay said, looking up at them all. Teyla stood behind him, worry written all over her face.

Ronon and Amelia came in behind a squad of marines and McKay glanced at them before nodding to Woolsey. "That's everybody," McKay said.

"All personnel, lockdown will commence in ten seconds. Please get to the nearest safe space. Ten, nine, eight…"

Woolsey continued his countdown as McKay and Zelenka fiddled with one of the large screens to get the life signs monitor to come up.

"Aha!" McKay crowed as it flickered to life on the screen, and Zelenka rolled his eyes.

The quarantine doors came down, and Chuck and Amelia took over two of the stations just behind Rodney and Zelenka. "Okay," Amelia said, "Let's cross off everyone in their quarters and then go to guard stations and labs."

It felt like forever while the four of them cross-referenced apartment space with rosters, Chuck crossing off people who were off-Atlantis for whatever reason, Amelia and Zelenka checking personnel rosters vs. quarters. Cougar stretched out on an empty chair, putting his hat over his face. Pooch knew better than to assume he was sleeping, but it was disturbing nonetheless.

Jensen was hacking away at something, probably camera feeds of the labs, if Pooch knew him even a little, and he, Sheppard and the Emmagens just stood there, wishing for something to do.

It took an hour and a half to eliminate the two hundred-ish personnel camped out in their quarters, and Pooch had just started his umpteenth game of solitaire when they got through the labs and guard stations.

"Now just the stragglers," Chuck said, and they looked at the sixteen dots around Atlantis that weren't accounted for.

Jensen sidled over to where Clay and Sheppard were watching Pooch's solitaire game intensely. Aisha was nearby, picking her nails with a knife – so attractive, that one – and Cougar was still pretending to sleep, which they all knew meant he would be the first one ready to go as soon as there was something to do.

"Someone's missing," Jensen reported, his voice low and soft. "There are seventeen people left on the roster and only sixteen dots."

Looking up at the cluster of people calling individuals on comms, Pooch's heart dropped. The chances of them finding the missing person (and he was personally convinced at this point that it was Wheels) went from moderate to impossible.

"How could he have gotten off Atlantis?" Clay asked, his voice as low as Jensen's.

Cougar shrugged. "Swimming." Pooch's mind went straight to drowning, though, and if the kid had though to hide out in the ocean and not come in, or gotten eaten by some sea monster –

"He could've slipped out the gate with one of the wormholes today," Jensen said, thankfully derailing Pooch's thoughts of drowning kids. "He's small, he's sneaky." He pulled up a list of all the gate travel. "M3C-497, SGA-9 took medical supplies to Beckett; MX3-9C1, SGA-3 on a routine follow-up mission; M22-C36, first contact for SGA-2; Earth, a bunch of stuff from McKay's lab for Area 51; a call in from Manaria inviting us to their winter festival; and M42-991, SGA-14 out with botanists on an uninhabited world."

"That's it," McKay said when all the dots were gone from the screen. His triumphant smile slipped as he looked over Amelia's shoulder at her computer.

"No Torren."

Woolsey stopped his pacing and came over to look at the data himself. "You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure!" McKay snapped, and Teyla put a firm hand on his arm. McKay snapped his fingers. "No, wait! Extend the life signs detector out into the ocean. Maybe he's swimming."

Pooch closed his eyes and waited. If they didn't find him, they were going to have to eyeball it – if Wheels had drowned, there wouldn't be a life sign, but there sure as hell would be a body.

* * *

Wheels felt it when his crate moved; he didn't get out because he knew he'd be in trouble for messing with Uncle Rodney's equipment – especially stuff that was packed away like this. He waited it out, figuring that once they got wherever they were going, he could climb out and hide somewhere else.

When the box stopped moving, he counted to one hundred in his head – Cougar taught him that – and lifted the lid to peek out. No one was around, so he pushed the lid off of his crate. There was a crack behind him, and he whirled around to see the small box he'd thrown into a stack of different boxes. They were everywhere. He climbed down the stack of crates that was three higher than when he'd climbed in and took a look around for the door. The room didn't look like anywhere on Atlantis; there were no door crystals, or even a door – there was just a couple of open holes in the wall that lead into hallways. The room was an ugly grey, too, and not smooth like Atlantis's walls were.

He slipped out into the hallway on the left, a rounded thing that looked like the hobbit-holes from the story Uncle John was reading to him, except they cold-looking, not warm and pleasant. He started walking, hoping to come across a transporter or at least into a more recognizable part of the city.

He walked for a long time, randomly turning right and left. Eventually he noticed the lines on the floor were a little like a map, and he had just decided to follow the green one when he saw something. Two people in uniforms, sort of like the marines wore, but not really. They crossed the end of the hallway in front of him, not even looking his way.

He ran the other direction anyway. He wasn't scared of marines, but these weren't any marines he knew, and still nothing looking like Atlantis, and he was starting to get really scared and –

"Oof," Wheels said as he ran right into another not-quite-marine guy.

"Hey there," the almost-marine said, and Wheels felt relieved that at least he'd found someone that wasn't going to yell at him right away. "How'd you get in here?"

Wheels looked around. He had no idea where the original room was, or even where he was anymore. "I don't know," he said, trying not to cry even though he missed his mom and his stomach growled because it had to be close to dinner time.

"Okay," the guy said. "Well, you sound hungry. Let's get you checked out in the infirmary, and then maybe I can take you for something to eat. What do you think?"

"I don't know," Wheels said. Uncle Rodney kept telling him he shouldn't go with strangers.

"It's okay," the guy said, and stuck his hand out for a handshake. "I'm Colonel Cameron Mitchell. You can call me Cam."

A colonel! Just like Uncle John. Wheels looked him up and down and thought for a minute before shaking his hand. "Wheels," he said, and Cam blinked a little and gave him a weird look.

"Wheels?" he said. "That's your name?"

Wheels nodded. He didn't like Torren, and Uncle Rodney and his mom were the only people that even called him that anymore.

"Okay," Cam said. "Let's get you checked out."

* * *

It was easy enough to contact Earth and Beckett to see if any small children had come in with their packages – no dice. SGA-2 and 3 were still off-world, and SGA-14 came rushing in with red blotchy hives all over their faces and hands the second Chuck let the shield down. They were hurried off to the infirmary with Kanaan as an escort, asking if Wheels had perhaps slipped out with them. Pooch felt bad for them – they'd escorted botanists a couple of times on off-world trips that hadn't worked out well either.

SGA-3 was too far from the gate for Chuck to be able to raise them on radio, so the Losers and Team Sheppard geared up and went to track them down. It was a fifteen minute walk from the gate, everyone in pairs except Pooch. His other half was back on Atlantis – safe and sound, he reminded himself, kissing his ring – and while he felt for Teyla, a small part of him was just thrilled it wasn't Ghost.

When they got to MX3-9C1, SGA-3 was so blitzed they were totally useless. Major Teldy was the only one even coherent, but she couldn't seem to suppress her giggles at the thought of Wheels sneaking behind them out the gate.

"Of course we haven't seen him," she said, putting a hand over her mouth to cover a bout of giggles. "We would've taken him back if we saw him, sir."

Sheppard nodded and they filed out of the little hut Teldy and Mehra were sharing. They tracked down the town leader, still at the celebration, and while he was amenable to helping them, it looked like most of the village was asleep or drunk.

Teyla secured permission to search the village for Wheels, and they split up and searched as delicately as they could. Two hours later, dragging themselves back to the gate, Pooch nodded along as he heard Cougar's Spanish prayers whispered behind him.

* * *

"Well, he's a perfectly healthy nine-year-old boy," Dr. Lam said, and Wheels smiled. "However he got in here, he doesn't seem to have been harmed in the process."

Cam smiled and gave him a thumbs-up, like Jensen sometimes did. Wheels gave Cam a thumb-up of his own.

"I was going to feed him before telling Landry," Cam says, and Wheels's stomach growled really loudly again.

"I think that's a good idea, Colonel," the doctor said, smiling, and Wheels jumped down from the cot and grabbed the hand Cam was holding out.

"Oh, isn't that cute," a dark-haired lady said from the doorway. "Is he yours?"

"No," Cam said, trying to squeeze by the lady. She didn't move, and Cam didn't seem to want to touch her to get her out of his way. "Vala," he said, and in Wheels's limited experience, it sounded a little like a whine.

"Yes, that's right," Vala said, and leaned down to look Wheels in the eyes. "My name is Vala. What's yours?"

"Wheels," he said, and put his hand out for a shake just like the colonel did.

"Well, aren't you adorable?" Vala said, shaking his hand. "I'm pleased to meet you."

"Me too," Wheels said, still shaking hands because she didn't let go. "I'm hungry." Ever since Uncle John said that his stomach could eat itself, he'd been afraid of getting too hungry.

"Well," she said, standing and keeping his hand, "let's get you something to eat."

* * *

Pooch sat next to Sheppard in the co-pilot's seat as they waited for their teams to finish gearing up. Clay was getting extra weapons, Cougar was getting his rifle, Jensen was getting more computers, and the rest of Team Sheppard was off getting whatever it was they needed to do before they went in to look for SGA-2. Lorne had missed his check-in by over an hour now, and they were going to go in assuming the worst. Pooch couldn't decide if he wished Wheels was there or not; if yes, then he was probably in danger. If no, then who knew where the kid was. And a missing kid was a hell of a heartache, worse, he's guessing, than losing one altogether.

Clay was the last one into the jumper, loaded to the gills with guns, knives, grenades and C4. "Colonel," he said.

Sheppard inclined his head. "Colonel. If you're ready?"

"Let's blow this pop stand," Clay said, and Sheppard called for Amelia to dial the gate.

+++++

SGA-2 was being held prisoner in an open-air jail-type structure, and Pooch grimaced as Lorne's unconscious body came on screen when they zoomed in.

"No other injuries," Cougar said, coming up the back ramp, and handed his rifle over to Clay so he could scope it out. Sheppard did the same with the HUD of the puddlejumper, and Pooch had long ago learned to never trust one over the other. Twice the information meant twice as prepared.

Sheppard checked the life signs. "Over three hundred people, Clay."

"I hear you," Clay said over the comm. "Two guards on the prisoners, two more at the entrance to the marketplace, and sixteen in the platforms among the trees."

Those were all easy enough. Cougar could take them out without breaking a sweat. It was more a matter of how to sort through all those people looking for Wheels.

"Tear gas?" Clay asked. Pooch was pretty sure they didn't have enough of it along for three hundred people, unless they were crammed in somewhere very small. Not to mention, Wheels was a kid – it was a bad idea to gas him.

"No way," Sheppard said. "Not if Wheels is in there."

"What do you think they'd do if we staged a jailbreak?" Pooch asked. Sheppard thought about it a second.

"Wild goose chase?" he asked. Pooch nodded, and Jensen's grin lit up his whole face.

+++++

In the end, Cougar took out the sixteen archers; it was just too risky to leave them up there when Pooch, Jensen, Ronon, and Teyla were going to be in the path of fire. After all sixteen were down, the four of them crept up to the town. It was more like a compound, thick walls and guard posts every few feet. It wasn't a defense against the Wraith – this was a bunch of people that were expecting enemies to come knocking with siege machinery.

Pooch and Jensen took out the front gate guards; Teyla and Ronon lifted the gate. Pooch never failed to be amazed at all the awesome in one small package, especially when Teyla somehow managed to keep her regal bearing, even when lifting half a ton of gate. Jensen rolled under the gate and started to work on the mechanism; Pooch crawled through on his belly and shot the two guards that came running.

Pooch went straight for the jail, shooting the two guards with stunned looks on their faces before they keeled over.

"Come on guys," Pooch said, rolling over one of the guards and looking for anything that looked like a key.

 _"That's it, there!"_ McKay yelled in his ear. _"The octagonal thing fits into the hinge of the door, see it?"_

He didn't, but luckily Jensen arrived with Ronon and Teyla on his heels, and he found it right away.

"You guys ready to run?" Jensen asked as he worked on the hinge.

"Ronon'll get Lorne," Pooch said, and the rest of SGA-2 nodded at him. "Parrish, you're with me. Li, you're with Jensen, and Jones, you're with Teyla. Jumpers are due west from the front door, but that's not where we're headed. We're taking as many people as we can on a wild goose chase."

 _"You've been made,"_ Clay said. _"Jensen, get that thing open and get out of there."_

"Yes sir," Jensen answered, and the door popped open. Ronon pushed his way in and grabbed Lorne, and they gave him a head start before running out the front gate together and splitting into pairs shortly after.

Parrish ran ahead of him, surprisingly light on his feet. Pooch had never worked in such close proximity with scientists before Atlantis, but he'd been there long enough to know that everyone on a gate team had some basic physical skills (even McKay could run a decent mile).

"How we doing, Colonel?" Pooch puffed into his comm.

 _"Good,"_ Sheppard answered. _"Time to circle back and head to the jumper – we're hoping they'll send search parties out to look for you. They've already sent ten guards to the gate."_

"Yes sir," Pooch answered, and clicked off the comm. "All right, Parrish, let's get back."

They shook off the half-dozen people chasing them with a well-timed sprint, and they just got the back door of the jumper up when their pursuers came over the hill, looking bewildered at their sudden disappearance.

"Slowpokes," Li said, punching Parrish on the shoulder. "We've been back for ten minutes."

"Good for you," Pooch said, leaning down to look at the nasty bump on Lorne's forehead. "That looks like it stung."

"Classic," Jones said. "The tree branch trap. The major walked right into it, thwap, tree branch right to the noggin."

Pooch thought he might get away with a polite sympathy sound, but Teyla burst out laughing like she had heard the best joke in the world. "Oh, I am holding that over his head forever."

"Quiet back there," Sheppard said, and Pooch slipped through the crowded back cabin and into the co-pilot's seat.

"What've we got?"

Cougar and Clay were nowhere to be seen, so Pooch had to assume they were getting in position. It only made sense that Cougar would take one of the archer's stands. "We're down to about a hundred people in town, but that's not anywhere near small enough to do a decent search. Most of them are women and children."

"Wait," Ronon said. "If they're all women and children in town, then why don't we use their own defenses against them?"

 _"That's exactly my plan,"_ Clay said over the comm. _"Cougar and I are in position, and six medium-sized search parties just went out to look for you. There's space to land the jumper in the market. Think you can manage that, Sheppard?"_

"Absolutely," Sheppard said. "On our way."

+++++

The rest of the mission was a weird sort of let-down. They sorted out the rest of the people, stuffing the troublemakers in the jail and rounding up the rest of the villagers onto the open stage in the market. It took less than an hour, and they split up into two groups: those who knew Wheels to check the buildings and vet all the kids, and the rest of them, who kept an eye on the jumper, the front gate, and the people in the marketplace.

Teyla, Sheppard, and McKay went through the throng of people in the marketplace; Pooch, Jensen, and Cougar checked every building with life signs detectors.

They found nothing.

* * *

Wheels was on his last scoop of the ice cream sundae Cam made for him, and he was thinking about asking for another, even though his stomach felt like it was going to explode.

"Daniel," Cam said to the guy walking in the door. He was in a black t-shirt and those ugly green mottled pants, and his eyes went from Wheels to Cam and suddenly back to Wheels.

"Daniel Jackson!" Wheels said, jumping up from his seat to go hug Daniel's legs.

"Torren," Daniel said, crouching down to look him in the eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"Wait, wait, wait," Vala said. " _Torren_? You said your name was Wheels!"

"It is Wheels," Wheels said, turning around to look at Vala. "That's what everyone calls me except mom, Daniel Jackson, and Uncle Rodney."

" _Uncle Rodney_?" Cam yelled, and Wheels shrunk back against Daniel. "You're from Atlantis?"

Wheels nodded, inching his way behind Daniel, afraid Cam was going to yell some more. "Hey," Daniel said, putting a hand up. Cam stopped yelling, and Daniel stood and picked Wheels up – not too easy anymore that he was about to be ten. "So how did you get to Earth, Wheels?" Daniel asked.

"I'm on Earth?" Wheels asked.

"Oh boy," Daniel said.

* * *

Mr. Woolsey was positively beaming when he met them in the jumper bay. "Great news," he said, as soon as Teyla walked down the ramp. "We've found him."

Teyla's knees gave out, and Pooch managed to catch her under the armpits before she went down. "Whoa," he said, lifting her up and keeping his hands on her rib cage until she was steady.

"Oh, thank you, Richard, thank you," Teyla said, moving forward and grabbing Woolsey by the shoulders for her Athosian head-meeting thing. "Where is he?"

"Well," Richard said, and that was a stall if Pooch ever heard one. He looked a little flustered at Teyla's affection, but there was still something wrong. "Why don't we talk about this at debrief. Only team leaders and Mr. Porteous, please."

"Hey," McKay said, "I'm Torren's uncle too."

"And me," Ronon pointed out.

"Fine, you too," Woolsey said. "Debrief in the conference room in an hour. To the infirmary with you."

+++++

At first, Pooch hadn't really liked the idea of post-mission physicals. It seemed like a lot of bullshit when most of their stuff was milk runs. The first time Dr. Keller found some nasty virus that Jensen'd caught from the wine the rest of them were smart enough not to drink, Pooch changed his mind. It was nice, having someone to look after you, not to mention a professional to stitch you up if you needed it.

This, though, this was painful. Wheels wasn't in the infirmary, so at least he wasn't injured. He was pretty sure Wheels wasn't dead; Woolsey wouldn't have made Teyla wait for that information. Hopefully he was just in bed with his dad, sleeping off his adventures.

+++++

"He's on Earth," Woolsey said, as soon as they all got seated.

"What?" McKay said. "He was in those crates? I am going to murder my staff. Who packed those boxes?"

"Hang on, McKay," Pooch said. "He was playing hide and seek with Ghost."

"Oh, because that makes it better," McKay snapped, but he put his hands up defensively when Pooch stood up to give him a piece of his mind. "I just mean that Ancient equipment is dangerous, and he shouldn't be playing with that stuff – I've told him before."

"Well, he's fine," Mr. Woolsey interrupted. "He wandered around the SGC for a while, and was finally recognized by Dr. Jackson. They immediately dialed us to let us know they had him and that he was fine."

Teyla let out a breath, and Pooch sat back down. Earth was good, it was safe – sort of – but it was eighteen days away, if the Daedalus was in orbit. He tried to remember the last time the Daedalus had been docked at Atlantis.

"The Hammond happens to be in orbit," Woolsey said, immediately gaining everyone's attention. The Hammond had one of Earth's four full ZPMs. They could use it to dial the gate.

"They're going to send Torren through the gate, but not for another six hours."

Teyla looked outraged at this, but she held her tongue.

"It's going to take some time to extract the ZPM and make sure the power works – it's been a long time since that power generator has been used." Woolsey looked significantly at McKay. "And they're getting together requests for the personnel. There's mail and several deliveries that were scheduled for the next Daedalus run. They're going to make the most of that thirty-eight minutes."

Teyla nodded slowly. "As long as my son is the first thing through."

"Of course," Woolsey said. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

* * *

Wheels watched the slow way the Earth gate dialed. Everything about Earth was slow and boring. He'd been waiting to go home for _hours_ , and they were finally ready. He held Daniel's hand, waiting for the splash to settle. He glanced around the weird grey cave, waving to Cam and Vala in the glass room above the gate.

"Ready?" Daniel asked. "Your mom and dad are waiting for you."

"Okay," Wheels said, releasing Daniel's hand and running headlong for the gate.

"Wait!" Daniel called, but Wheels was already through, the weird twisty thing lasting much longer than it did when they gated home. Finally it was over and he was running into Atlantis, and his mom and dad and Uncle John and Uncle Rodney and all the Losers were there, like they were all waiting for him. Pooch had Ghost on his shoulders and he was waving like mad.

"Torren!" his mom called, running down the stairs.

* * *

Pooch watched Teyla scoop up her son and twirl him in circles. It wasn't too many years before he was going to be taller than her, he thought.

Daniel Jackson stumbled through the gate, reaching out like he'd been trying to catch Wheels on his way in. He straightened up when he saw the crowded gate room, and nodded at Woolsey.

"We've got a lot of stuff coming," he said, and two MALPs loaded with stuff came through behind him, pushing him further into the gateroom. "You should probably get some folks down here to unload."

"I'll help," Pooch said, setting Ghost down and kissing Jolene. "C'mon," he said, punching Cougar. "I hear Jensen's care package is in one of these boxes."

* * *


End file.
